Deus Ex Machina
by MitisVenatrix
Summary: John Shepard wakes up to find himself at the mercy of a force within his own head, one he doesn't know how to fight or overcome.  What can give him the strength to endure when faced with the impossible?  Written for Skybound's Mass Effect Ficathon on LJ.


**Mass Effect Ficathon**

**Prompt**: Generic M!Shep is captured by the Collectors, turned into a covert Harbinger avatar, and returned to the Normandy in a "rescue." Bonus points for a scene where M!Shep "watches" his mind get systematically dissected, duplicated, and destroyed AND/OR where Harbinger!Shep muses on interacting with organics on a daily basis.

**Characters/Pairings you'd like included**: M!Shep, Harbinger, Normandy crew, almost any M!Shep pairing (but would give even more bonus points for Harbinger!Shep/Joker), though I would think that Harbinger!Shep only agrees to it for the sake of impersonating Shepard.

**Preferred rating of fic**: T-M

**Things you don't want**: M!Shep/Tali, smut, mpreg...

_A/N: This fic was written for the __**Mass Effect Ficathon**__ run by Skybound over on Livejournal. I told her, much to my later chagrin, that I wanted a challenge. One that she delivered._

_This was unlike anything I've ever had to write before. It was strange, and fun while it lasted. I know I probably didn't do Joker nearly enough justice in the process. Which brings me to my next point: critiques, now more than ever, would be greatly appreciated on this piece. If you're one of my regular readers, you know that I GREATLY appreciate reviews, but don't expect them. With this one, I'm not looking for gushing (though should you feel so inclined I won't turn it down :p), but for anything you think could have been better! I eagerly await your responses to this, and especially c_Saber, the crazy person who came up with this prompt._

_~Misty _

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_**The flesh is a machine... **_

Harbinger - "Mass Effect 2"

**Deus Ex Machina**

Insanity. It is described by different people, and different cultures, in so many different ways. By definition, it is also known as craziness or madness, a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Breaking the societal norm.

In my world, though? It's watching the _thing_ that controlled my body tear apart the life I had built piece by piece. To watch the creatures I had been fighting tooth and nail annihilate my relationships, my memories, my very will to _live_. To stop fighting, however, was to lose myself completely. To submit to the creature's will, even for a moment, was to surrender to His control altogether.

_**We are Harbinger. Relinquish your form to us...**_

I was, and am, Commander John Shepard. I submit to no one. The Council could never cow me. Saren could never take me down. The geth, the collectors? Mere child's play before my skills and willpower.

But this... this event. It might break me as nothing before ever could have. The constant back and forth, the tug and pull of my will versus Harbinger's... if He were to dominate me, the galaxy would be forfeit. Completely unprepared for the invasion so close at our doorstep. It wasn't just my humanity that was at stake.

_**Evolution cannot be stopped. You prolong the inevitable...**_

It was the fate of the galaxy, more definitively than ever before.

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My body aches. Not in a concrete way, but in a far off sort of reflection of actual pain. Movement is nonexistent. Nothingness fills my brain. Memories whisper in the back of my head, but it's easier to float. To ignore them in favor of the warm embrace of the darkness, lashing out against the light that threatens that comforting blanket.

_The voices- they are insistent, aren't they? - won't leave me alone. There's nothing there for me...but even as I think it, I know that's a lie. My heart is there, waiting, ready to welcome me back from the brink. I can almost hear him speak._

"Come on, Shepard. You're keeping us all waiting. Will you kill the suspense already?"

_The sardonic voice, my reality check, drags me back as nothing else ever could. _

"Shepard?"

I open my eyes. Open them to find out I'm not alone in my head or outside of it. I see the face of my soul, want to reach out and touch him after the horrors of being taken, but my body won't respond. Not because of injury or medicine, but because of the alien presence that is trying to force me out of my own mind.

_**Why do you resist us, Shepard?**_

I've locked myself into a corner of grey matter to hide, to survive, but that allows It to take over... hinders my ability to set my lover's mind at ease. Even if my own is in turmoil, I want to comfort him. I force my way to the forefront, fully aware that the dark presence allows it only so It can keep itself hidden from the _other._

"I'm here, Joker. I'm awake. Nothing to worry about." My voice is strange, sounds strange, to my own ears. I can't remember why the pilot is worried, whyI'mso disoriented.

_**Human: fragile genetic structure.**_

"What happened?" My tongue feels thick, dry, and is if sensing my discomfort he pushes a cup unto my hands. The fingers, to my astonishment, actually grip it without my trying. My voice is mine, but my body is still belongs to _It. _Of it's own accord, my arm moves, brings the vessel of water to my lips. I swallow without needing to think about it, unable to stop it even if I wanted to.

"Banged you head harder than we thought, huh? Big creepy guys, with all the eyes? Ones we destroyed at their base? They had a couple of cells out and about when that all that went down. They were a little pissed." His playful grin has returned, the worry falling from him as he witnesses my awakening.

_**Assuming control of this form.**_

I sighed, "Get to the point, Joker." _Wait, that wasn't what I said. I said, "What the hell is wrong with me?" _The alien presence slithers across my consciousness, listening to the secondary account of events without making me privy to the information, shoving me back into the small space from before. It probes my mind for appropriate responses, then shreds my memories as I look on, drawing forward memories that should never be seen by anyone else. They are _mine, _not to be sullied by It's scrutiny, not to be melded with It's own slimy thoughts.

"_You remember to zip your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom, that's good. I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead, so that's incredible." His confidence, perhaps overconfidence, is a breath of fresh air. It parallels my own. I'm called 'Butcher' for good reason, after all. Because when you're just that damn good, you're that damn good. I lay a hand on his shoulder..._

I shoved at the creature, forcing It away from that, only for It to lunge into another.

_**You cannot resist...**_

_I walk into the cockpit, only to hear the sound of woman gasping, a pornographic sound. The pilot, unembarrassed, only says, "Uh, sorry. That was supposed to go to my earpiece."_ _My eyes are transfixed on the vid, muting my normal response, a quick berating. The two men on the screen are sharing each other as much as the girl, and I find myself contemplating things with another man for the first time in my life that I __**never**__ would have before..._

**Get out!** I give a mental yell, and if It could have felt derisive humor, the thing would have laughed at my futile efforts. _**Nothing stands against us. These attacks are pointless...**_

It punctured a new memory...

_"Having Legion around is just…begging for a rifle up your ass. Without the sweet talk,"_ _my companion jokes, ever in his own style. But two years without me, well, they've affected him too. I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. He always blamed himself for killing me...and I've always told him to forget it. I had known then I couldn't let him go down. Now, after watching him float away as I took a final breath, I was done hiding._

"_Didn't figure you'd ever be one to complain about that," I quipped back, Chakwas' brandy singing in my veins, making me brash and stupid. Making me say things that I would never have said._

He'll run from me now. You just watch.

_But he hadn't. Just given me the same smile he always had, standing awkwardly on the legs Cerberus had given him. I have supported them, if for no other reason, than the gifts they have given _**my**_ pilot._

"_I thought you'd never bring it up, Shepard," he moves forward with a surety, and my body sings, hums, _vibrates_ as our lips meet for the first time. The strangeness I expect it absent. It's as if my body has been waiting for this. The warmth of desire spreading as his almost familiarly large hands caress me, bringing me forward lightly but forcefully into his arms..._

**NO! YOU WON'T!** I gave a mental shove, with all I had... I refuse to let Him into that one.

_**You cannot sustain your attack...**_

I feel my mind returning, slowly, but not completely. My body is mine again, for now. I sit up, grabbing my companion and kissing him passionately, remembering without having to not to apply too much pressure. He starts, then melds into me with a happy sigh, allowing the moment to happen in spite the audience in my room. A hitherto silent audience, a luxury we'd never allowed ourselves before, sticking to secrecy.

I don't care, now, not really. As I pull away, it occurs to me that neither do Garrus, Chakwas, or Mordin. The three people on this ship who have probably suspected all along what was happening between their commander and their pilot. Their acceptance is reassuring, if unneeded.

_We're going to be okay now. It's gone_. I say, or start to, but that single act of rebellion has taken all of my energy. I realize, now, that the retreat has been only an illusion to bring my guard down. I feel _It_ returning, and realize I will have to succumb to blackness to avoid giving It control.

_**You will regret your resistance, Shepard...**_

_I love you, Jeff. I should have told you..._ is my last thought, before the darkness overtakes me once more.

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You only damage the vessel; you cannot hurt me.

Pain again.

This is the third time I've awoken like this. In patches, glimpses of life, and I know I don't have the ability to fight much longer. It... is changing tactics, becoming more seductive in It's manipulations, feeding off my memories and hopes and dreams.

_**You do not yet comprehend your place in things.**_

It is becoming me, dissecting me down to little pieces, taking what it wants, raping my mind in a way that must surely be worse than any bodily invasion could be. I wouldn't know. No one would dare have tried... and yet it must be more despicable than that. I feel _unclean_, like every part of me has been drug through the quagmire and is covered in some sticky filth.

_**You are arrogant, Shepard. You will learn.**_

The alternative, however, to get up and move through my daily routine at the bidding of the puppeteer, is unthinkable.

_**You cannot stop us, Shepard.**_

I can't talk about what's going on. Every small freedom It allows me is solely so it can research how to imitate me. To give in is to become one step closer to oblivion, to retreat is to become one step closer to dying as my body starts to shut down. Yet every time I awaken, there is always someone there. Others, of course, and almost always Jeff. His face, his voice, ground me in sanity for a little while.

A sanity my memories give me too, if only as an echo of the real thing. Even the painful ones.

_**Pain is an illusion.**_

"_I know it couldn't have been easy for you down there. I'm sorry, I... Just don't know if I could have done it." His voice is sorrowful, hurting. To me, much as I'll miss Kaidan's loyalty, it had been a decision in tactics. Alenko was with the bomb, it was already set, there was nothing I could have done. So I made the call, a soldier to the end. Joker's words, though, they bring the choice home forcefully; make me consider it as a man instead of a machine._

"_I just hope I never have to do it again." But I know I will. I'm a commander. It's my job to make decisions like that. "Just hold it together. We need you."_

"_Don't worry, I won't let you down, Shepard. I want to be there to make that son of a bitch turian pay!"_

And...

_**They will be as we are.**_

"_Everyone? You lost everyone? And damn near lost the ship too?" Miranda stalks into the room as I silently pace, unsure of how to deal with the whole situation. _

"_I know, alright, I was there..." Immediately, both EDI and Jacob come to his defense. But I don't blame him. Even outside of my own feelings, I can't blame him. We could never have foreseen this happening._

_So, all I say is, "It was a rough ride, Joker. How you holding up?" So impersonal, but we have an audience, and we've been careful to avoid crew scuttlebutt, lest it undermine my command. What is really means is, "Did it break you?" An ironic thought, all things considered. _

_All he says is, "There's a lot of empty chairs in here," as he hangs his head._

'I'm sorry, Jeff. I'm so sorry.'_ My old compatriots from Torfan would never believe that the man in front of me had been the one to teach me compassion. The one that would make me give a damn about anyone but myself._

Then there was...

_**There is no fear.**_

"_Shepard! Shepard! Goddamn it, answer me." I hear his voice, but can't answer, knocked almost senseless by the thing dragging me along. It was a simple damn mission, explore the outskirts of one measly little planet, and it had gone to shit in less time than it took me to pop a heatsink. My arms were being yanked, hard, in a way that would have pulled them from the sockets if I hadn't been wearing my armor. I'm just conscious enough to hear him call, but not enough to respond. _

_No matter how much I want to. _

_I can't fucking believe it. Everything I've been through, even defying death itself, and some rogue group of Collectors takes me down. The Scion that is currently my captor had been _regenerating, _for god's sake. They've never done that before. The fact that the tactic has been used to take me down irks me. A lot. Call it the price of arrogance._

Remembering this helps me remember the rest...

_**Shepard, your interference has ended.**_

_The tubes and wires had been painful, but I'd endured worse. Hell, I'd _inflicted_ worse. But then the newest torture starts. Not pain, but a surreal loss of the feeling, of constriction. I'm not sure what they're doing to me, if this is some form of sensory deprivation, but I remember thinking "Thank god" when the explosions start. I feel wrong, different, like I'm not myself. Almost detached, in a panic-inspiring way. Then, a set of words that are familiar yet terror-inducing assault me from within my own head: _

_**Assuming control of this form.**_

No. It can't be...

_I struggle, to no avail, only to see a familiar face enter my field of vision. If you can call an alien species familiar._

"_Shepard, you alright?" __**Turian; you are considered...too primitive.**_

_The strange thing uses me to nod, not yet familiar enough with my nuances to do more. Garrus doesn't seem to notice, at least._

"_Then get off your ass, Shepard. Zaeed is keeping them at bay, but not for long. We've gotta get the hell out of here."_

_He tosses a Vindicator into my hands without hesitation, and It rifles through my memories for the way to hold it. To use it. __**I will take what is useful, and destroy the rest**__._

_Still struggling, I fall into night as I'm shoved further down into my own head._

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Chakwas and Mordin look panicked when I next wake up. Joker downright haggard, as if he hasn't left my side. As my eyes open more fully, I stare at him, once again unable to do anything but blink. Unable to speak comforting words, my eyes will have to be my voice, his window into my soul.

He looks at me, normal scruff even more pronounced than usual. I can almost feel it against my cheek as I watch. His hat is conspicuously missing, something I've only witnessed once before. The night before we hit the Omega Relay. The night we finally allowed ourselves to take the last step in our relationship. I fight that memory, but emptied as I am, I can't help but give in to that final respite.

_**I sense your weakness...**_

"_I only take my hat off for one thing..." he says as he comes in, some long forgotten quote from god knows where. I turn to watch him as smirking, he catches my gaze and very deliberately reaches up and removes it, depositing it on the edge of my desk at the top of the stairs. Slowly, he moves forward, lit by the blue glow of the empty fishtank._

_I've never been this nervous before; never felt like this before. I've slept with more than my share of women, taken full advantage of the perks of being an Alliance hero. But sex has always been sex. The emotional connection I feel with the man in front of me is something I've never really contemplated with anyone._

_I'm a battle-hardened man, and part of me hates myself for the weakness of loving him. But I do love him, and I won't deny myself any longer. Won't deny him this either._

_I put down the datapad in my hands, moving to meet him at the stairs, my hand reaching up to stroke down his freshly trimmed beard. In spite of all the nonchalance, he's taken extra care this night too._

"_Are you sure about this Jeff? Really sure?"_

_He reaches up, laying his hand over mine, "More sure than anything in my life." _

_With that acceptance, we abandon all pretense of holding back. His lids closing over his intense, green eyes as I move forward, our lips meeting with that familiar softness among all the rough. We lose ourselves in the last night, the only night, we may get before almost certain death._

As his dream face, glowing with happiness and desire, superimposes over his now pale and gaunt one, Harbinger surges forward again. It has garnered what It needs from the last memory I had managed to keep hidden. Has no further use for me now that my mind is His.

_**You are no longer relevant. Submit now.**_

I ball my fists, tensing every muscle as I begin my futile attempts to fight him.

_**Pitiful. Your attacks are primitive.**_

_I won't let you do this..._

_I won't let you..._

_I won't..._

Derisive mechanical laughter, once impossible for Him to imitate, rings in my head. I manage to force my body to grunt in defiance.

_**You cannot stop us. This body's pain is irrelevant. Face your annihilation.**_

Every cell of my body explodes, every pain receptor going off at once. I scream, a muffled sound, still fighting His attempts to drive me out.

_**This body does not matter. Flee while you can, Shepard.**_

I grit my teeth, quick breaths in and out my only defense as I pray for the darkness to return. But no relief will come this time. This time, I either endure, or I become nothing. Stubborn as I am, succumbing is preferable to the piercing, fiery torture as every muscle in my body begins to contract and release in seizures. In death throes.

A cool hand grips my own, the face of my heart-mate filling my vision as if he senses the internal battle for dominance I am fighting. Emerald eyes meet mine with a purpose.

"Shepard. I'm here." He hesitates for a single moment, then forges onward. "If you can understand me, John, just know I'm here. And I love you." I open my eyes as widely as I can, taking in his face one last time, only to see silent tears fall as he repeats that last. "Do you hear me, asshole? I said 'I love you.' Don't you dare give up now."

Words he's never said before. Words we never _allow_ ourselves to say, for fear of the hurt caused by rejection.

_**You are shortsighted. Sentient beings need never fear pain. Hope is irrelevant.**_

Warmth seems to spread from where our hands are clutching one another, anchoring me back into reality. To who I was, and who I was losing. Returning my will to fight.

Because if I don't, then Jeff will be the first person at Harbinger's mercy when I succumb.

I draw strength from his face, determination from his tears, and pull them about my consciousness like a set of armor. I imagine it growing, flowing, enveloping every part of my soul as it gains size and rock-like hardness; filling me head to toe as it forces the creature into the most extreme recesses of my body.

A scream of rage fills my head as I push further against Him.

_**You escaped us before, Shepard. Not again. The forces of the universe bend to me.**_

I push a little harder, his voice growing louder...

_**This delay is pointless. We are limitless. If I must tear you apart, Shepard, I will.**_

Harder...

_**You cannot kill me, Shepard.**_

_Wanna bet, asshole? Take this... _Drawing from my last reserves, with a strike that would either prove my salvation or my doom as it drains me, I shove again. Pushing with every last fibre of my being. This is _my_ body, _my_ spirit. I think two simple words I've spoken once before, only adding the conviction that they must be obeyed: "_Get out._" I expect a push back, some sort of resistance, but that doesn't happen.

_**You have merely delayed the inevitable... This changes nothing, Shepard. **_

_**Releasing control.**_

Then, emptiness... blessed emptiness.

I release, then re-grip the hand in mine, sitting up in an almost dreamlike trance as I do so. My body, my thoughts... for the first time in days I know them to be my own. Without hesitation, I speak to the head bowed in front of me, saying the one thing that really matters. "I love you too, Jeff."

His head snaps up in disbelief, eyes haunted and voice strained, "Shepard? You're _awake_? You're _really_ awake."

I nod slowly, world spinning slightly as I do so. "Yes. Now did _you_ hear _me_, asshole? I said, 'I love you, too.' But don't go spreading it around or anything."

He lets out a ragged chuckle as I copy his words, moving forward to meld his lips with mine all over again, both our hands exploring as if to make sure we are both truly here. I spend god knows how much time drowning in the sweetness of his taste, of his kiss; my mind is only able to think about one thing as he finally pulls away.

Never, never again would I consider this, or any, emotional connection to be a weakness. Without it, I would not have survived Harbinger's invasion. My discovery, in the end, would possibly be our only defense against the Reapers; might prove to be our only salvation from their destruction. Ensure our survival.

All because of this human emotion called love.

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_**The experiments will continue, Shepard. Progress cannot be halted. You cannot escape your destiny, Shepard...**_

Harbinger - "Mass Effect 2"


End file.
